Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology (Senior Division)
Methylmercury, a bioaccumulative toxin linked to neurological damage, enters cells by mimicking essential nutrients. Its L-cysteine conjugate structurally resembles L-methionine, hijacking l…
Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology (Senior Division)
The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a selective physiological barrier that regulates the movement of molecules between the bloodstream and the central nervous system. In neuroinflammatory condi…
Medicine & Physiology (Senior Division)
This project investigated how dietary macronutrients affect the rate of glucose diffusion across a semi-permeable membrane. The hypothesis was that fiber and protein would reduce glucose dif…
Chemistry (Senior Division)
Uncoated electrodes during electrolysis produce wide reaction zones and accumulate gas bubbles at their surface, reducing efficiency and control. This project investigated whether calcium al…
Medicine & Physiology (Senior Division)
The glial scar that forms after ischemic injury creates a structurally and functionally complex barrier, yet how it regulates neural stem cell (NSC) fate remains unclear. Single-cell RNA seq…
Medicine & Physiology (Junior Division)
Antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa is responsible for an estimated 559,000 deaths annually worldwide, and for immunocompromised patients like myself, it is a leading cause of mortal…
Earth & Environmental Sciences (Track 2) (Junior Division)
Global warming is a current, growing problem affecting all our lives. My science fair project discovers what happens to mollusk shells when oceans become more acidic due to global warming, a…
Electronics & Electromagnetics (Junior Division)
Engineered a low-cost dual-layer gas safety system combining Arduino-based MQ-5 gas detection ("Digital Nose") with smartphone visual monitoring ("Digital Eyes") for elderly stove safety. Th…
Computational Science (Senior Division)
Standard causal language model pretraining uses a single-label cross-entropy objective that ignores the existence of multiple valid next-token continuations resulting in sample inefficiency.…
Environmental Engineering (Junior Division)
2.1 billion people do not have access to clean, safe water. Depending on my findings, I am hopeful this research will help a lot of people gain confidence in creating their own filters. I cr…
Mathematical Sciences (Junior Division)
Humans inherently communicate through body movement. Therefore bodily expressions serve as a powerful but often subconscious channel for emotion and social signaling. Despite progress in vis…
Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)
This study investigates musical emotion identification using non-auditory senses alone. Guided by the valence-arousal model of emotion and multimodal integration theory, we designed a system…
Zoology (Senior Division)
Predator-prey interactions often involve temporal sequences of sensory cues, where predator-derived chemical signals are detected by the prey before physical contact occurs. Whether prey neu…
Earth & Environmental Sciences(Senior Division)
Harmful algal blooms cause over $1 billion in damages annually, and microplastics compound this threat by transporting toxins, fostering algal biofilms, and accelerating cyanobacteria growth…
Cognitive Science (Junior Division)
The purpose of this project is to find out if music is the best way for anyone trying to get into cycling, or in any kind of athletic activity, to improve their performance. My scientific qu…
Earth & Environmental Sciences (Junior Division)
Abstract My experiment helps people understand that you can filter water with resources from a mountain but it will not be clean enough to be drinkable. For my experiment I filtered dirty wa…
Chemistry (Junior Division)
Lack of hard water purification solutions costs American corporations $25 billion annually due to extra energy usage, maintenance, and premature replacement. To support environmental sustain…
Environmental Engineering (Track 2) (Senior Division)
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the most important contributing factors to global climate change. Extensive monitoring is required to determine emission impacts. Compared to orbital…
Medicine & Physiology (Track 2) (Senior Division)
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects 1 in 9 Americans over age 65, yet 98% of clinical trials fail, reflecting a mismatch between cellular heterogeneity and coarse-grained patient-level single-t…
Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)
Stroke is a critical global health issue, and many cases are preventable if risk factors are identified early. Current risk assessment approaches often separate behavioral and neurophysiolog…
Computational Science (Senior Division)
Non-verbal individuals often experience difficulty communicating basic needs and emotional states. This project investigates whether physiological signals from wearable sensors could be used…
Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)
Current diagnostic methods can only detect neurodegenerative conditions after symptoms emerge, when significant neurological damage has already occurred. This project investigates early sign…
Medicine & Physiology (Track 2) (Senior Division)
Stroke and migraine with aura, which affect over 300 million people globally, present with similar visual symptoms requiring differentiation through costly neuroimaging that may not be avail…
Medicine & Physiology (Track 2) (Senior Division)
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune neurological disorder affecting 2.9 million people worldwide. For MS, an incurable disease, the prevention of progression (from RRMS to PPMS)…
Plant Biology (Junior Division)
Venus Flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) are carnivorous plants native to nitrogen-poor wetlands. Scientists believe the nitrogen deficiency was the driving factor for evolution of pretty capture.…
Earth & Environmental Sciences(Senior Division)
Plastic nurdles—small industrial plastic pellets used in manufacturing—are a major yet under-monitored source of global microplastic pollution. An estimated 445,970 metric tons of nurdles en…
Medicine & Physiology (Senior Division)
The California wildfires of 2025 (Palisades and Eaton) were the second-worst recorded weather disasters, with potential severe health consequences. It is becoming clear that cardiac abnormal…
Medicine & Physiology (Senior Division)
In the field of microvascular diagnostics, the most significant diseases are those that silently compromise systemic health by attacking the smallest vessels in the human body. Nailfold capi…
Applied Mechanics (Senior Division)
Autonomous vehicle (AV) research has focused on structured, high-income Western environments, leaving dense, infrastructure-variable developing regions underexplored. This project develops t…
Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology (Junior Division)
Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are a rare and aggressive cancer that develops from nerve tissues, affecting about 1 in 100,000 people. These tumors are difficult to remove…